It has long been recognized that substantial flavors and essences are lost during the processing of juices. The prior art contains a number of processes for dealing with this problem. In these processes, lost essences are captured, concentrated, and returned to the batch process or in-line additions of the essences and flavors occur immediately following heating.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,991 discloses a process for making an aseptic juice. As discussed therein, pasteurized ready to drink juices are typically shipped as pasteurized or frozen concentrate. They are then reconstituted with water at plants located near the ultimate market. Water soluble and oil soluble flavor ingredients are typically added back to the juice during reconstitution with water and the resulting reconstituted juice must again be pasteurized before the product can be placed in stores. Pasteurization is especially required if the juice is to be shelf-stable to any degree. The process described in the '991 patent adds an aseptic flavor system to the pasteurized reconstituted juice to avoid excessive heating after the flavor system has been added.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,588,337 to Sperti discloses a process for concentrating orange juice in which concentrated liquor is returned to and mixed with centrifuged concentrate so that the mixture contains practically all the valuable constituents of the fresh juice without material loss or deterioration of volatile flavor.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,140,187 to Brent discloses a method of making orange juice concentrate in which essence is added back to the orange juice concentrate in such a way that the concentrate and essence do not mix. After the essence has been added to the concentrate, the mixture is placed in containers for sealing and freezing.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,735,779 to Wenzelberger discloses a method of dehydration by freezing in which pulp removed from an earlier processing stage is reincorporatod into the concentrate. The mixed concentrate then passes to the point of final packing.
However, in each of these cases, essences and flavors are again lost down line during, for example, pumping and filling operations. Thus, a problem of obtaining a highly flavorful product of consistent quality still remains.